Field Trip

I received an email today from one of Caleb's teachers. It was a group email, sent to all 8th grade parents to inform us about an upcoming field trip.

When I think field trip, I generally have images of zoos and museums, maybe a factory tour. Those places make great field trips.

The 8th grade isn't going to one of those places. Rather, because they are studying World War II and happen to live in China, they will be taking the bullet train to Nanjing, where they will explore the Nanjing Massacre Memorial and participate in activities at the site.

I think this is really cool.

I don't know much about the Nanjing Massacre. I do know it was a horrific part of Chinese history, where hundreds of thousands of Chinese people died at the hands of the Japanese. It's not something we Westerners focus on in our very European centered study of World War II.

I'm glad that in a few weeks Caleb will go to Nanjing with his classmates, and hopefully while they're there, that bit of history will come alive for the Concordia eighth graders.